The VS Saxton Hale Mode is an unofficial "Juggernaut" variation of Arena Mode, in which an entire team of mercenaries is pitted against one player in a battle to the death. Whilst the primary rules of kill or be killed still apply, the modification involves the lone player taking on the role of an overpowered Saxton Hale (or other "boss" character), contending against the rest of the players as the other team until either the boss or all of the mercenaries die. Occasionally the teams may switch, to allow the team-colored models for Vagineer and Christian Brutal Sniper to appear and to generally vary things a bit.

The mod was created by Dr. Eggman and Random Fortress community in October 2010. Some updates (August/September 2010) to the mod were done in collaboration with FlaminSarge. Later, in July 2014, Chdata took over main development of the game mode and has opened to contributions via Github. Saxton Hale is voiced by Dreux "Druox" Ferrano Jr.
Usually the maps these games take place on are VSH_ (Versus Saxton Hale) maps.

Contents

Gameplay demonstration

Gameplay

Note: Gameplay may change accordingly across different servers, due to the main VS Saxton Hale plugin being an open source project for anyone to fork their own edits to their liking. This page only covers the default version of the game mode and thus may be different from edited versions of the game mode.

Because the game mode is based on Arena, dead players cannot Respawn until the next round starts. The boss is usually restricted to using melee swings or Mantread stomps but is granted with a very large health pool. Most bosses default to a +210% damage increase, giving 3.1x the base damage of 65, allowing them to hit 202 (rounded from 201.5, which is still used for internal math checks in the game). This damage allows them to one hit kill most classes, except for Heavy who starts with 300hp by default and other classes like Soldier if they are overhealed enough to overcome the boss's damage. This can vary if the server enables damage spread and random Crits.

A control point on the map will either enable after a certain elapsed time, or when the number of RED team players has dropped to a certain amount, depending on the server's settings. At this point, either team is able to capture the control point and win the round.

In order to reward risky close-range combat with the boss, all melee weapons (excluding the Spy's melee weapons and Market Gardener) are given a constant Crit boost. Many actions that would instantly kill a normal player, such as a backstab or a Taunt kill, will only deal a large amount of damage to the boss rather than killing him outright.

Backstabs in this case, have a formula that scales how much damage is dealt based on the boss's max health. In 1 versus 1 or 1 versus 2 scenario, backstabs can hit for around 60% of the boss's health. Granted, it tends to be much harder to pull one off when the boss has less players dividing his attention. In a 1 versus 31 scenario, backstabs will hit about 10% of the boss's health. The boss itself gains a slight resistance to backstabs for every backstab it receives, reducing the damage of the next backstab from any player.

Unless bosses other than Saxton Hale are disabled by the server, the boss player has a chance to become one of the various different boss characters from the game mode; most of these alternate bosses are varieties of internet memes or fads. Whilst several exclusive skins appear on specific servers (such as the Demopan), the core version of the mod includes a playable Horseless Headless Horsemann Junior (a smaller, player-sized HHH), the Vagineer, the Christian Brutal Sniper and the Easter Bunny, a completely original character. Meanwhile, other bosses have been created and developed based on Internet celebrities (mostly memes), Valve characters (such as those from Portal), other TF2 NPCs (TF2 Announcer) and more.

Versus Saxton Hale's boss selection is weighted to select Saxton Hale the majority of the time, or roll a dice that will equally select from the other bosses.

Boss abilities

In order to provide balance for the greatly outnumbered boss, several abilities are available to the boss player. These include:

Superjump: By crouching or alt-firing, looking up and releasing crouch/alt-fire, the player will be propelled upwards and usually forward, depending on the pitch (up and down angle) of the player's view upon activation. Generally, crouch super jumping is less beneficial than alt-fire super jumping because it loses the ability to have a "running start" when activating the jump.

The Horseless Headless Horsemann Jr.'s Superjump is replaced with the ability to teleport the boss to a random enemy. The teleport takes longer to 'charge', and the boss is stunned for a few seconds after teleporting, giving his prey a chance to escape. The boss's clipping against enemy players is also removed for a short time after teleporting, to prevent the target from getting stuck inside of him. For balancing reasons, the clipping is not removed if the target is a Scout or Soldier. It is still possible for them to not get stuck anyway, due to TF2's physics.

Super Duper Jump: A variation of the "Superjump" that protects the boss from instant death or becoming trapped by falling into a precipice. This usually activates when the boss, is stuck in a environmental damage zone, and such will be able to activate it with Superjump keys. Some maps, such as Nucleus, may instead teleport the boss to spawn instead of granting Super Duper Jump due to the difficulty of being able to jump out of the pit. This per-map behavior is configurable by the server.

The Horseless Headless Horsemann Jr.'s Super Duper Jump always causes him to be instantly teleported to spawn. For the first minute, he will only be teleported to his own spawn. After that, he can appear at either spawn. Maps configured to teleport all bosses to spawn (instead of granting Super Duper Jump) also follow this behavior.

Rage: As the boss takes damage, his rage meter will fill. This generally defaults to 3500 damage being 100% rage, and is configurable by the server. The ability can be triggered either by taunting or by calling Medic and will scare all nearby players, halve nearby Sentry Guns' health while disabling them temporarily, and deal 1 damage to Dispensers and Teleporters which is able to alert the Engineer who built them that a rage was used as the damage will reflect on his HUD. The boss will also gain a 4 second defense buff after using rage that reduces all incoming damage by 33%. The stun lasts for 5 seconds and the distance of effect defaults to 800 hammer units, but varies per boss. For example, the Vagineer, Christian Brutal Sniper, and Easter Bunny all have severely reduced rage distance due to the other special effects their rages have.

The Vagineer's rage ability stuns players in a smaller range than Hale's and grants him an ÜberCharge, protecting him from all incoming damage. Air blasting the Vagineer while he's Übered (raging) increases the length of the uber by about one second.

The Christian Brutal Sniper's rage ability gives him a modified Huntsman that allows him full movement speed while charging up an arrow, but also has a small stun range.

The Easter Bunny's rage ability causes him to dance and fire explosive eggs in every direction, temporarily disabling his melee attack. The eggs behave like Loose Cannon cannonballs. For every person the Easter Bunny kills, golden eggs will appear, granting 3 seconds of Crits to players that pick them up; this can be used in combination with the Easter Bunny's rage effect to create a barrage of Crit boosted grenades.

Escape Plan Effect: All bosses' movement speed increases as they take more damage, which adds to their already increased starting speed.

Mantreads Effect: If the boss meets the requirement for a Mantread stomp, it will generally always result in an instant kill due to having the +210% damage bonus on top of it. The damage tends to vary based on how much fall damage the boss would have taken (despite bosses being immune to fall damage unless it's strong enough to kill them). Some servers commonly use a "Goomba Stomp" plugin that allows much easier "head crushing" kills to occur. As a reference to Mario from Nintendo, it defaults to triggering by merely jumping on an enemy's head as opposed to having to fall far enough to take fall damage. A Spy using the Dead Ringer or the Invisibility Watch and a Medic with an activated ÜberCharge can potentially survive a mantread or goomba stomp.

Weighdown: After being airborne for five seconds, looking down and holding crouch will force the boss down to the ground to prevent getting stuck from constant knockback. Weighdown also gives the boss 6x gravity for a short time, to further augment sticking him to the ground.

Anchor: While crouching on the ground, the boss gains 100% immunity from damage induced knockback. Very useful to prevent being knocked out of vents and other small areas that can only be traversed while crouching, or avoid being knocked off small pillars.

Strategy

Balancing specifics

The bosses' initial health increases based on the number of players taking part in the game. This health is calculated as the nearest integer to [(760.8+n)×(n-1)]1.0341 + 2046, where n is the initial number of players on the non-boss team and 2046 is the base health.

Saxton Hale (and other bosses) Health

Number of players on the server

Health gain per player before base health add

Max (spawn) health of boss

1

0

2046

2

478

3003

3

654

4007

10

938

11425

17

1010

19210

23

1046

26095

30

1077

34343

31

1080

35539

Some weapons equipped by Mercenaries will be changed into their default counterparts or edited for balance issues:

All Soldier primary and secondary weapons (excluding the Cow Mangler 5000 and the Righteous Bison) will perform Mini-crits against an airborne boss. (the weapons Mini-crit airborne targets for up to 99999 seconds after weapon switch)

The Battalion's Backup grants 75% knockback resistance. The meter will fill as normal, but will also do so instantly after surviving any hit from the boss. When used, it will block a massive amount of damage from bosses against the player and teammates within the buff radius.

The Mantreads reduce fall damage by 90%, increase rocket jump force by 1.8x and deal 1024 damage to bosses upon landing on their head. On servers with the Goomba Stomp plugin, it may be possible to register both a Mantread Stomp and Goomba Stomp simultaneously.

The B.A.S.E. Jumper reduces damage of Market Gardens by 33% when active. A successful Market Garden will disable the parachute if it is active, however it can be re-deployed instantly.

The Half-Zatoichi heals +35 health on hit and can overheal the player by up to +25 health. The weapon can be sheathed after a hit.

The Market Gardener does damage similar to backstabs on a market garden, except scaled lower for balancing purposes. After successfully landing a market garden, the Soldier must blast jump again before being able to do another.

When a Compression Blast is used on any boss, the boss will gain 4% rage. In addition, using the Compression Blast on the Vagineer while he is ÜberCharged will take extra Ammo and will lengthen the time of the Vagineer's rage.

All Flare Guns are Crit boosted.

The Phlogistinator disables Flare Gun Crits and deals 50% less damage while not under effect of the MMMPH buff.

The Flare Gun and Detonator are replaced with a "Mega-Detonator", a customized Flare Gun that behaves like a Detonator, but allows for a very large Flare Jump at the expense of greater self-damage from explosions. The flare jump will propel the user a large distance regardless of whether it is detonated via alt-fire or via the flare exploding on contact with an object.

The Manmelter Revenge Crits do 2.5x damage. Incidentally, there are no opportunities to ignite players in the default version of the game mode that are eligible Revenge Crits other than the rare ignited Christian Brutal Sniper arrow or dedicated map element, often rendering the ability useless.

The Powerjack gives the Pyro +25 health on hit and can overheal the player up to +50 health.

The Third Degree will add 10% ÜberCharge to any Medics healing the player. The 10% is split among multiple Medics. If a Pyro is able to constantly hit the boss while under the effects of a Medic's Übercharge, it is possible to prolong it infinitely.

The Ali Baba's Wee Booties and the Bootlegger reduce fall damage by 90% and deal 1024 damage to bosses upon landing on their head under valid Mantread stomp conditions.

The Chargin' Targe, Splendid Screen and Tide Turner block one hit from any boss, after which they are removed from the player for the duration of the round. All shields grant the player with either a Crit or Mini-crit boost for their Grenade Launcher, depending on the server's configuration.

The Holiday Punch removes all stun effects if the Heavy is able to land a hit on the boss while stunned. It does not gain a Crit boost as other melee weapons do, but can still perform its laugh on Crit ability, though the effect will only last for 0.1 seconds on the boss (with the exception of a Vagineer who has used his rage ability).

The Medic spawns with 40% ÜberCharge, and after each ÜberCharge runs out, gains 31% Übercharge automatically.

Targets who have been granted a Crit boost by the gamemode will also deal Mini-crit damage for indirect forms of damage if they are being healed. This can affect an Engineer's sentry by giving it Mini-crits when an Engineer has his Wrench equipped, because the game mode normally only grants Crits without Mini-crits for melee weapons.

All syringe guns are replaced with a custom Syringe Gun that grants 5% Übercharge on hit and the Overdose's speed effect.

All Mediguns are replaced with a customized Kritzkrieg that grants both Crits and Über during its charge and the Disciplinary Action speed boost effect while healing the Scout. Upon activating ÜberCharge, the Medic is boosted to start at 150% instead of 100% charge.

All Mediguns have their attributes replaced and function identically to one another. They provide both a Crit boost and an Über during its ÜberCharge, and the Disciplinary Action speed boost effect while healing a Scout. Upon activating ÜberCharge, the Medic's Übercharge meter is set to 150%, causing it to last for 12 seconds rather than 8.

All Sniper rifles deal 3x more damage than normal. Critical and Mini-crit hits will still deal the same amount of damage as though they were not Crit or Mini-crit hits (i.e. all un-scoped hits will deal 150 damage).

The Sniper Rifle outlines the boss (so that other players can locate him) for several seconds. The time added to the glow timer scales based on the charge of the shot.

The Cozy Camper, along with its attributes, also gives the player a custom SMG that causes the boss to bleed for 1.5 seconds on hit, deals 15% less damage, and does not randomly Crit. It is not granted a Crit boost.

The Bushwacka will allow the Sniper to hit a wall to 'wall climb'. The attack rate of the Bushwacka is reduced on a successful 'wall climb' to lower the player's rate of ascension, each 'climb' also deals around 15 damage to the player to prevent indefinite climbing. The Bushwacka prevents the player from being healed while in use, to further prevent Medics from allowing a Sniper to indefinitely climb.

Changelog

After a successful market garden, you must touch the ground again before getting another. (Fixes getting stuck in HHH on teleport for multiple mid-air gardens).

One-Time CenterText messages now appear over repeated messages. For example, "You just backstabbed him" will show for 5 seconds if you're the last player, and prevent the "Current boss health is..." message from overwriting it.

Fixed rounds ending due to everyone being on the same team when the round starts.

KGB still acts like GRU, but is no longer visually changed to look like GRU.

Added some missing Precache stuff.

Added OVERRIDE_MEDIGUNS_ON. Uncommenting this will replace medigun attributes while keeping their original skin/model, instead of replacing them with a kritzkrieg. Thanks to Starblaster64.

Fixed the "Living Spectator" glitch that often happens with AFK-Manager and other plugins that move players to spectate.

Added sm_hale_reload for developers. This command tells the plugin to reload itself at the end of the next round, essentially making the plugin reload itself without disrupting gameplay.

During the first round, team balance is enforced for even teams. This prevents scenarios where everyone joins RED team and become confused as to why the game won't start (because no one is on BLU).

Integrated fix for TeleportToSpawn that prevents the boss from being teleported to other arenas in multi-stage maps, such as in vsh_megaman_* - He will only teleport to the current arena.

A bunch of random code changes/optimizations/frogs imported from my version of VSH.

Full list of changes can be seen here. (Note: All the relevant stuff is already posted above).

Version 1.50 (10/7/2014)

Removed gamedata dependency.

Fixed mantreads not giving increased jump height.

Reserve shooter no longer Thriller taunts.

Optimized some code and brought in sync with the github

Now incompatible with versions of SM lower than 1.6.3

Version 1.49 (8/24/2014)

Updated again for the latest version of sourcemod (1.6.1 or higher)

Botkillers are fixed now.

Fixed wrong number of players displaying when control point is enabled.

Fixed festive GRU's stats and festive/bread jarate not removing rage.

Fixed issues with HHH teleporting to spawn.

Added configs/saxton_spawn_teleport.cfg

Version 1.48 (8/14/2014)

Call medic to rage.

Harder to double tap taunt and fail rage

Block the boss from using voice commands unless he is CBS/Bunny

Hale only takes 5% of his max health as damage while in pits, at a max of 500.

HHH instantly teleports to a random spawn after falling in pits.

- For the first minute, he can only teleport to his own team's spawn.
- After that, any spawn team's spawns.

Cannot constantly spam super jump as much when falling into pots. (Yes pots).

- IMPORTANT: I realize this may make arena_nucleus terrible. On my server I made it teleport hale to spawn like HHH on only this map, but I didn't feel like setting up a config file for this to release publicly yet.

HHH takes 50 seconds to get his first teleport instead of 25, in light of the wallclimb.

Updated translation files for the new weapon changes that nobody reads.

Version 1.47 (8/04/2014)

Updated for the latest version of sourcemod (1.6.1).

Fixed final player disconnect not giving the remaining players mini/crits.

Fixed cap not starting enabled when the round starts with low enough players to enable it.

Fixed players not regenerating on spawn and having items of the opposite team color.

Using !haleclass as Hale now shows boss information instead of class information.

Fixed Hale's anchor to work against sentries. Crouch walking negates all knockback.

- Remember to read the installation notes above as TF2Attributes is required for this feature.
- Remember to still read it if you don't want to use TF2Attributes.

Being cloaked next to a dispenser now drains your cloak to prevent camping.

Version 1.46 (7/27/2014)

Hale can no longer pick up health packs.

Fixed maps like military area where BLU can't pick up ammo packs in the first arena round.

Unused content

The model for Saxton Hale includes two bodygroups, one to hide or show his hat and the other that adds a mustache, glasses and goggles on the top of Hale's head, much like Dr. Robotnik from the Sonic series.

Bugs

When Saxton is defeated, depending on the version of VSH, his model may disappear and leave behind the ragdoll of the Soldier that Hale is played from.

This is the same case with Vagineer, Horseless Headless Horsemann Junior, Christian Brutal Sniper and the Easter Bunny. They will leave an Engineer, Demoman, Sniper and Demoman ragdoll respectively.

If a player uses the command explode in console to commit suicide, no gibs will appear.

The taunt items such as Director's Vision or Schadenfreude can be used by all of the boss characters, albeit without any facial movement, and will activate rage.

Occasionally, when a player's distance from Hale is too great to render him, the outline caused by the Sniper Rifle will stay in place instead of following Hale's position.

Jarate is not immediately removed from Hale, but rather removed after a fifth of a second. Thus, Hale may take Mini-Crit damage for that small duration any time the Jarate effect is applied to him.

When a boss scares an Engineer wearing the Hotrod, the mask flips down.

If a player joins a VS Saxton Hale server and is fully in-game (e.g. at the MOTD) before a round starts but has not chosen a team or class, they may spawn in at any time during the round by selecting a team and class. This bug also occurs in Arena mode with the server variable tf_arena_use_queue 0.

When a player is in Pyroland, the bosses' voices may or may not be pitch-shifted, or may be a combination of both states. This is not entirely unintentional.

The class info displayed on spawn is outdated. According to the current developer, this will be rectified soon.

Sometimes when being raged players may be able to reload their weapons if "Auto reload weapons when not firing" option is on.